Track and Field Con­cludes In­door Sea­son

MISHAWAKA—The Bethel track and field teams ex­pe­ri­enced the de­f­i­n­i­tion of a rocky sea­son. From lim­ited com­pe­ti­tion to the NC­CAA Na­tional Cham­pi­onships be­ing can­celed, they could­n’t catch a break. They did, how­ever, have their bright spots through­out the year. They were fi­nally able to cel­e­brate the open­ing of a state-of-the-art train­ing fa­cil­ity, the Lehman Fam­ily Train­ing Cen­ter, and their top ath­letes earned count­less awards, in­clud­ing Thomas Jack­son, a se­nior from Gary, Ind. He not only be­came a na­tional cham­pion in the long jump, but also ac­cu­mu­lated count­less ac­co­lades.  

“He con­tin­ues to im­prove in track and scores huge points for us as a team,” Head Coach Danny Wilk­er­son said. “More im­por­tantly though is his en­hanced ap­pre­ci­a­tion and goals in the class­room and spir­i­tu­ally. It would be safe to say he came to Bethel to run track and now it's to get a great ed­u­ca­tion, glo­rify god, and do his track thing bet­ter than ever.” 

Not only were the track and field teams suc­cess­ful in an in­di­vid­ual ca­pac­ity, but they were also able to ac­cu­mu­late mul­ti­ple team awards. The biggest of these ac­com­plish­ments was the women win­ning the Cross­roads League Cham­pi­onship. It was their sev­enth to­tal Cross­roads League Cham­pi­onship, but their first ever for in­door track and field.  

“When [COVID-19] hit us a year ago, it was an emo­tional blow to go from train­ing to per­form at your best to ‘sorry, your sea­son is done, go home,’” Wilk­er­son said. “The long break was good for some and chal­leng­ing for oth­ers. To even have the abil­ity to com­pete has been a bless­ing. It has only strength­ened our love for the sport and un­der­stand­ing that Christ is in the cen­ter of the pro­gram.  The fin­ish­ing places was just ic­ing on the top for how every­one com­peted. They just put it all out there that week­end and when the dust set­tled it was a great day.” 

De­spite hav­ing the NC­CAA Na­tional Cham­pi­onships can­celed, the track and field teams were able to com­pete at the NAIA Na­tional Cham­pi­onships. As men­tioned above, Thomas Jack­son won the long jump for the men, but many other out­stand­ing ath­letes com­peted at the high­est level. This in­cluded Emma Mott be­ing named an All-Amer­i­can in three events and All-Amer­i­can ti­tles also be­ing given to Megan Cooper, Kayla Kunkel and Ha­ley Wim­mer. 

The track and field teams have yet to re­lease their out­door sea­son sched­ule. For more in­for­ma­tion on the track and field teams visit www.bupi­lots.com.